Craig Barron began his career at ILM, where he worked on The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark. His company, Matte World Digital, created environments for Titanic and Zodiac, and Barron himself is an Oscar-winner for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. He is co-chair of the Science and Technology Council for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) and an Academy Governor representing the Visual Effects Branch.

Joyce Cox is a former commercial producer turned feature-film VFX producer. Her credits include Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, The Dark Knight, Avatar and The Jungle Book. She teaches a course in VFX production at the USC School of Cinematic Arts and is the force behind the web-based VFX-production toolset Curó.

Dan Curry is a seven-time Emmy winner for his VFX work on television productions including Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager and Chuck. He’s a former Peace Corps volunteer, a DGA and PGA member, and ASC associate member.

Paul Debevec is a senior scientist at Google VR and adjunct research professor of computer science at USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering. His UC Berkeley Ph.D. thesis presented a photogrammetric modeling system he called “Facade,” techniques from which were used in his short film “The Campanile Movie” and, later, in The Matrix. His work with the USC Institute for Creative Technologies has led to Light Stage devices that were used to create digital doubles in Spider-Man 2, Superman Returns, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. He is VP of ACM SIGGRAPH and a member of AMPAS and its Science and Technology Council.

Michael Fink’s first film was The China Syndrome, but he became a VFX supervisor with War Games. He was nominated for an Oscar and BAFTA for his work on Batman Returns and The Golden Compass, and he directed the first Coca-Cola Polar Bear spot in 1993. He’s a founding member of the VES and a member of the executive committee of the AMPAS visual effects branch. He’s a professor at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, where he chairs the film and television production division and holds the George Méliès Endowed Chair in Visual Effects.

About the Author

Bryant Frazer has been covering production and post-production technology since 1998, when he wrote about video compression and disc replication technology as the editor of DVD Report. He is the editorial director and associate publisher of StudioDaily.

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